If we believe, as I do, that Jesus never sinned, that is an unchanging quality about him that made it possible for him, without sin, to be the sacrificial lamb for all of us and to take all of our sin on himself. While he was here as a human, he grew in stature and matured as any man does, but he never sinned. Unchanging. Whenever he had to make a decision or was tempted, he unchangingly made the right choice to do the righteous thing. As God is immutable and without sin, so was Jesus while he was here. When he began his ministry he was able to teach us the perfect will of God because he had lived that will as a human, but without sin. And he never changed from that, so that we could live and have life, his life. The goodness and grace of God is unchanging in his son, our Savior, and he gives these to us with the desire that we change to learn them--and become more and more unchanging in our choices to be without sin as Jesus taught us.

Charles

Thanks, Rolley! It's both a relief and (as always) a delight to see your comment. But I must admit my surprise at the "edginess" displayed here by Dorcas and Nimrod; typically they're the epitome of graciousness. The latter is a wise general policy on their part, of course, lest someone read one of their dialogs and come away offonded.

Oh, and FYI: http://www.proprofs.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13120

Now with *that* out of the way, where were we? Oh, yeah:

Let's think about what we know of God's nature. God is love, per John the Beloved, and God is also truth, and justice, and righteousness, and our protector and provider and many other things we could rattle off if we but think on it for a moment. And we would agree that these attributes of God are ones that never change.

If that's the case, then does any other "change" we observe actually represent *change*, in any meaningful sense of the word?

I mean, if God wants to come to Earth as a Jewish carpenter or a Southern gentleman or even the kid behind the counter at the local Tim Horton's, so what - as long as it's consistent with His nature?

And we're told that the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection were planned from the foundation of the world. So God puttin' on skin is no deviation; it's been what we would have and should have expected all along.

A local restaurant used to have a tip jar with the sign "If you fear change, leave it here." Hmmmm - perhaps without the tip jar, such a sign could possibly be placed on a church's altar rail...

.
A self-documenting introduction to hacking most anything, but especially the dual nature of ducks and men.

Nimrod: I like these new light switches about as much as I like international symbols.
Dorcas: What are you complaining about, Nimrod?
Nimrod: These wall switches. They’re worse than stupid.
Dorcas: How so?
Nimrod: They’re confusing.
Dorcas: I swear you’re never happy unless you’re unhappy.
Nimrod: Seriously, look at this, Dorcas.
Dorcas: I am looking. What.
Nimrod: There’s an “off” switch and there’s an “on” switch.
Dorcas: Yeah, so?
Nimrod: Think about it, Dorcas. What’s gonna happen if I ask you to turn off the lights?
Dorcas: {Silence)
Nimrod: I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. You’ll say (because I know you), Do you want me to turn the “off” switch on, or the “on” switch off?
Dorcas: I wouldn’t say that.
Nirmod: Sure you would.
Dorcas: No I wouldn’t.
Nimrod: Ok, what would you say?
Dorcas: I’d say, Why do you want the light off?
Nimrod: Yeah, you would say that, wouldn’t you.
Dorcas: I said I would.
Nimrod: Stuff like this really hacks me off.
Dorcas: I guess that would mean your hack-off switch is “on”, Nimrod. Ha ha.
Nimrod: Funny. But actually, that’s a perfect illustration of my point, Dorcas.
Dorcas: How so?
Nimrod: Yeah, think about it. If my hack-off switch isn’t “on”, then is my hack switch “off”?
Dorcas: I guess so.
Nimrod: No. It’s not. It doesn’t follow. It’s a non-sequitur.
Dorcas: How is it a non-sequitur?
Nimrod: There’s no such thing as a hack switch.
Dorcas: There’s no such thing as a hack-off switch either, Nimrod.
Nimrod: What I mean is, you can be hacked-off, but you can’t be just hacked. There’s no such thing. People don’t talk like that.
Dorcas: People don’t say turn the “off” switch on, either.
Nimrod: Exactly. So why did some genius create both an “off” switch and an “on” switch? Why not just a single “on-off” switch? It’s nutty I tell you.
Dorcas: Coulda been worse.
Nimrod: I don’t think so.
Dorcas: Yeah, it could. They could’ve made a single switch that all it did was turn the light on. Or off.
Nimrod: You know what, Dorcas?
Dorcas: No, what, Nimrod?
Nimrod: You’re not making things any better for me.
Dorcas: No?
Nimrod: No. In fact… oh never mind. It’s just that – sometimes you drive me crazy.
Dorcas: We try.
Nimrod: Look, do me a favor, Dorcas?
Dorcas: What.
Nimrod: Turn it off.
Dorcas: Huh?
Nimrod: Just turn it off.
Dorcas: Turn what off?
Nimrod: The chatter. Just turn it all the way off.
Dorcas: Whatever you say, Nimrod. Off is now officially on.

--

Apologies to Regis (and Gina). I’m not sure how I got off on that tangent....

The Incarnation was not a change in God's nature. Nor was it even a change in policy as it was planned ahead of time.

The reason I picked Gurps as an analogy instead of the more usual one of literature is because a gamemaster has to deal with characters that have Free Will. At the same time he must make the plot go roughly as planned. To fail to do the first is called "railroading" in nerdspeak(which is roughly equiv to extreme calvinism). If the GM fails in the second there is no story, but simply an old fashioned round of repetitive kill-the-monster-and-take-his-treasure which is not suitable for a well crafted RPG(though even the best can have a bit of monster killing and treasure plundering). But the story(or "campaign") was thought of by the GM with imput(prayers?) from the players. And the GM remains what he is no matter what happens in the campaign.

To continue the anology, a Player character(PC) is like a human; he is both character in the campaign and transcending the story. An NPC(nonplayer character; like the innkeeper they buy their Mighty Sword from or whatever) is like an animal; he has know existence outside the game as, so far as we know animals don't(OK, maybe flies go to heaven; in that case fly heaven and human hell are the same place). If the GM chooses to write himself up as a PC he has become Incarnated. I have never heard of that happening but Let's Suppose. If the GM does so, he has not changed his nature; because writing himself up as a PC was part of his plan from the beginning of the Campaign, and the GM's nature outside the Campaign is beyond his status as GM. His nature effects his decisions rather then the reverse. As in reality a GM is human, that is not completely the case of course, but it is the case with God who is the supreme GM.

(hehehe: 2 Th.Ds)

Agreed.
It seems that the Chalcedon council was able to reconcile the Incarnation with this doctrine (in fact, the doctrine is a defense of the incarnation). I agree that it is a matter of proper definition and avoiding equivocation.

I wonder (being from low-church Protestantism) how much this kind of teaching is gone over in Catechism classes.

Any thoughts from "those who know"?
Thanks.

Steve, I suspect there were irregularities in your cross-border Commenting Permit. (Said in jest, but I'm still - uh, - "hacked off" that I had to go to all that effort and pay all that money just to work Up North for a few weeks.)

It's interesting; I was just reading Philip Johnson's notes on the Fallacy of Equivocation from one of his "Darwin on Trial" debates with William Provine. The issue is that terms like "evolution" can have multiple meanings, and using one meaning in one place in an argument (to mean "microevolution", for example) and another meaning in another place ("macroevolution") is fallacious.

So it's important to get the terms defined clearly.

What does the word "change" mean, then? Does God really "change" if He becomes angry? Is adopting human form but doing so to complete the work of redemption because of a love that has never lessened in intensity - is that "change"?

Similarly, we need to define the word "immutable". What would it mean for God to mutate? Is Allah immutable, in contrast, since Allah's judgement of people is arbitrary but YHWH's judgement of them is not?

We might need to call in at least two Th.D.s ("pair o' docs" - nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Hey, Rolley's currently AWOL, so someone's gotta do it.) to resolve this by going all lexicographical on us.

It's hard to comment on the subject, Steve, given that it WAS settled at Chalcedon, and given that it is talking about Inscrutability, anyway. It's hard to think of something to say.

Where are all the fun comments? (Are others having the same troubles I'm having?)

Anyway, I think the best way to understand this is that:
1) Christ is understood to have two natures.
2) His Divine nature is unchanging in its nature.
3) The Logos cannot be confused to have a disunity of these two natures. He exists and he is One.

But, that's to get this discussion rolling.

A good metaphor would be as if a Gurps Gamemaster wrote himself up as a player-character. Or is that just a little to nerdy?